Crown of Pine - Alfred J. Church

Paul of Tarsus

Aquila had not been many days in Corinth before he
found that he was in closer contact with the new
movement in religion, the "Way," as it is commonly
called in the earliest Church history,
than he had been in Rome. Paul, the great preacher of
the Christian faith, had been for some time carrying it
westward. It had but lately reached Europe, and was but
little known there, but it had become a power in a
region which was in close communication with Europe,
the lesser Asia. On the second day after Aquila had
taken over the business mentioned in the last chapter,
he found on arriving at the
warehouse that a visitor was waiting to see him. The
stranger explained that he had business relations with
Aquila's predecessor, and that he had come to find out
why an order which he had sent had not been executed.
He was, he said, a merchant of Ephesus, and his name
was Trophimus. The business affair was soon disposed
off, but not till the stranger had been favourably
impressed with the intelligence and general demeanour
of the new manager. Conversation turned to general
topics; and as various matters of interest common to
both were discussed, was prolonged to the time of the
noonday meal. Aquila invited his customer to join him,
not a little to the latter's surprise, a feeling which
he could not help betraying by his looks, though he
was, of course, too polite to express it in words.

"You are thinking," said Aquila with a smile, "that
this is a somewhat unusual civility for one of my race
to show to one of yours."

"I must own," answered Trophimus, "that the thought
did cross my mind. Of course there are Jews who are
'hail, fellow, well met' with any one who will treat
them to a flagon of wine; but they are not of your
sort. As a rule, I much prefer dealing with men who,
outside business, keep me very strictly at arm's
length. It is not exactly flattering to one's pride,
but
then I find that these men meet their engagements and
the others do not. But I know some exceptions."

"For myself," said Aquila, "I have learnt, I hope, a
more excellent way. I quite see that our old
exclusiveness had its use and purpose. We had to keep
ourselves separate from the world, because we were
taking care of something which we could not take care
of in any other way. But that is all over now. In Him,"
he went on, speaking as it were to himself, "there is
neither Jew nor Greek."

Trophimus caught eagerly at the words. "What!" he
cried, "did I hear you aright? 'In Him there is
neither Jew nor Greek?' These are the very words I have
heard again and again in the mouth of one of the very
noblest of men."

"And who is that?" asked Aquila.

"Paul of Tarsus," was the answer.

"Ah," said Aquila, "I have heard something about him,
and have always wanted, I cannot say how much, to hear
more. And you know him?"

"Yes," replied the Greek, "it is my privilege to know
him. Indeed, I may venture to call him my friend."

"This," said Aquila, "this is the happiest of
fortunes. But come, we must put off this talk, which
must not on any account be hurried over, till we are
more at leisure. The meal is waiting for us."

As the two sat at table, the talk naturally turned to
the subject of the family from whom Aquila had taken
over the business. Trophimus was particularly anxious
to hear what had been done with Eubulus, "a most
promising lad," he remarked, "and likely, according to
all accounts, to distinguish himself greatly."

Aquila briefly related what had taken place, and did
not fail to explain that what had been done in the
matter had been done at his wife's suggestion.

"For myself," he went on, "I must own that I feel a
little doubtful about it. Very likely you will think it
a prejudice. Now what do you think your friend Paul
would say to it?"

"Well," replied Trophimus, "that is not a very easy
thing to answer. I cannot imagine him going as a
spectator to see a foot-race or anything else of the
kind. That would not be at all in his way. He has his
thoughts wholly fixed on other things; he is not one
who would dream of amusing himself in that, or indeed
in any other way. But I don't suppose that he looks
upon these things as wrong. And I will tell
you why I think so. I have heard him speak of them over
and over again. He uses them as convenient images and
comparisons for the spiritual things which it is his
business to speak about, and to bring home to the minds
of others. For instance he makes a great point of
discipline; a man must not let himself be led away by
the desires of the flesh. I have heard him, when he was
preaching on this subject, use a metaphor which he
borrowed from the boxing-ring. 'I buffet my body,'
was the term he used. There is another term of the same
kind which I have heard him use, and taken from the
same source. Our boxers have a way of practising their
art at a lay figure or a post. We call it 'shadow
fighting.' Well; I heard Paul say that the disciple's
conflict with enemies, without and within, was to be
nothing of that kind. He was not to be as one that
beats the air. Then I have heard him speaking of life
as a training, as a race, where the runner must keep
his eye fixed on the goal.
Now I don't think that he would use this language if he
thought that there was absolute
wrong in these things. They don't appeal to him; how
should they when his heart is so taken up with his
work? but he is quite willing to make them serve his
purpose in his own way."

"All this," said Aquila, "I am very glad to hear, and
so will my wife be. It has troubled her that we did not
quite see eye to eye in the matter."

This was the first of many conversations. Nor was
Trophimus the only acquaintance with whom he discussed
the same subject. Attending on the next Sabbath the
synagogue worship, he was much struck with a stranger
who had been asked to officiate. This man, whose name
was Achaicus, was a Jew, a resident in another of the
Asiatic towns which had business with Corinth. He came
of a family of Scribes and had been educated
accordingly, but had been compelled by various
circumstances to follow commercial life. He was known,
however, for his piety and learning, and on his not
unfrequent visits to Corinth he was commonly asked to
officiate. The Jewish community was wholly mercantile,
and the persons qualified to lead the service were few
in number. The stranger asked for the roll of the
Prophet Isaiah, and read from it the passage which we
know as the fifty-third chapter. The discourse which he
afterwards delivered was
full of significance to at least one of his hearers. It
was not, of course, such as a preacher of the present
day might found on the passage. A distinct and direct
identification of the majestic sufferer described by
the prophet with Jesus of Nazareth would have been
wholly out of place. The audience would have failed to
understand it; or, if they did catch a glimpse of such
a meaning, would have been offended. But to instructed
ears, such as were Aquila's, what was said had much
meaning. He eagerly seized the earliest opportunity of
conversing with the stranger, and heard more about the
great preacher's ways of thinking than Trophimus had
been able to tell him. It would not serve any useful
purpose to attempt to reproduce the account which
Achaicus gave of Paul. Much that he said had come to
him by common report and was naturally inexact and
exaggerated. We all know that contemporary history is
sometimes that of which our knowledge is the least
accurate. Anyhow, we may be certain that the narrative
of the Apostle's faithful companion during the later
years of his life
and the reference in his own letters to the Christian
Churches give us a far better idea of what he was and
what he taught than we could get from the impressions
of one so situated as was Achaicus, however sincere his
devotion. One story, however, may be given which,
though not included in the authentic record as we have
it in the Canon of Scripture, has an undoubted
foundation in fact.

"It was in Antioch of Pisidia that I was first
privileged to make the great teacher's acquaintance. I
had gone thither on business and found the city in a
great state of commotion. My host could talk of nothing
else but the discourse a stranger had delivered in the
Synagogue on the preceding Sabbath. My host was a
devout man, one whose thoughts were greatly filled with
hopes of the redemption of Israel, and what he had
heard had appealed to all that was best in him as
nothing had ever appealed before. The stranger had, he
told me, a companion, a man of most majestic presence
and of a singularly benevolent expression. He had read
the Scripture for the day, and had added a few words,
very solemn and impressive, and delivered with an
affecting earnestness of manner. But the other man was
the great speaker. He was scarcely an orator; his style
was curiously involved; his delivery harsh and
ungraceful; his personal presence feeble and
unimpressive. Yet his speech had irresistible power
'with the storm of his
fast coming words like the drift of the winter tide
snows.' There was a great gathering to hear him. The
synagogue was filled from end to end; and outside there
was an immense audience of Gentiles. All the city
seemed to have come together. I never saw such
enthusiasm. Every face seemed to glow with joy and
hope. One might have thought that every man and woman
in the crowd had heard the news of some personal good
fortune. But you know that there are hearts which
nothing can touch, and I am afraid that nowhere will
you find them so seared and hardened as among our own
countrymen. Well, there were some in the audience that
day who heard this noble teaching with the blackest
rage in their hearts. That day, and for some time
afterwards, they could do nothing. But they bided their
time. They went about with slanders and calumnies; one
kind of ware for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. So
they worked and worked away, till they turned the whole
city, one might say, against the preacher of the 'Way.'
Well; we have no right to be surprised. It is just what
happened to the Master himself. One day all Jerusalem
was shouting out 'Hosannah to the Son of David,' and
two or three days after it was screaming, 'Crucify Him!
Crucify Him!'
The end of it was that the two had to fly for their
lives from Antioch. At my suggestion they came to
Iconium. I thought that I might do something for them
there, for it was my own city. Well, their enemies did
not leave them alone. They followed them and laid
charges of disloyalty to Caesar, and I know not what
else before the Iconium magistrates. Then I put in a
word; and did so, I hope, to some purpose. I had
business relations with some of them, and they had
reasons for wishing to oblige me. They could not very
well dismiss the charge at once; but they did what they
could. They committed the accused to the charge of one
of themselves.
He was to have them in his keeping till they should be
called upon to make a regular answer to what was
brought against them. Now comes in the curious part of
my story.

"Just opposite the magistrate's house was the dwelling
of one of the richest men in the city. The street was
very narrow, you will understand, with just room for
foot passengers to pass backwards and forwards. This
man had a daughter, Thekla by name, a very beautiful
girl who was
about to be married to one of the most promising young
men in Iconium. One night—it was very shortly after the
prisoners had been committed—there was a little
gathering in the chamber where they were lodged. The
magistrate was there with his two grown-up sons; I was
there also and I had brought some friends with me.
Altogether there might have been some fifteen persons.
Paul spoke to us about giving up everything for
Christ—money, family, home, all that was nearest and
dearest to us. He was like to a man inspired, and his
voice rose as if he were speaking not to less than a
score of hearers, but to thousands. Thekla sat at the
window of her chamber on the second floor, and she
heard every word; and what she heard went straight to
her heart. It seemed to her like a message from God. A
couple of hours or so later she went across to the
magistrate's house and bribed the man who was in charge
of the prisoners with a silver bracelet to let her into
their room. What Paul said to her I know not. That he
told her to do what she did I do not believe for a
moment, but it is easy enough to understand how she
may have come to think that he did. Well, the next day
she sent for her betrothed. First she tried persuasion.
Would he release her from the engagement? She would not
marry him;
she was called to other things; she must serve God. All
this was like an unknown tongue to the young man. 'Is
she mad?' he said to himself. It might be so, but she
seemed quite rational in her way of talking, and to be
quite sure of her own mind. He did his best to persuade
her, but he might as well have talked to a rock. Then
naturally he went to her father. The father, an old
man, passionately fond of his daughter, did all that he
could to bring her to another way of thinking. When she
was obstinately set on her own way, he grew angry. He
would shut her up till she came to a better way of
thinking. And so he did. But he was not thorough enough
in his proceedings. He left her her jewellery, and with
that the way of getting out of her prison. All the
household idolized her. Very likely she could have got
away without a bribe; but with a bribe she was
irresistible. One morning, three or four days after the
beginning of this affair, she was gone. She had heard,
it seems, that Paul and his companion, who by this time
had been released by the magistrates on condition that
they would leave Iconium without delay, had gone on to
Lystra. She followed them alone. Imagine that! a girl
who had never been outside her home without two or
three attendants! I
doubt, in fact, whether she had ever set foot on the
ground outside her father's house and garden. Somehow
she missed them. Possibly they had taken another route;
possibly she had been misinformed. Anyhow she never
came up with them. When she was about a mile from
Lystra, the Eparch of the city overtook her. He was a
priest of the local Temple of the Julian House—they
have a cult there of Julius the Dictator and
Augustus—and he was coming home from a function at
which he had been assisting. He was wearing his
priestly robe—that you will see turned out to be an
important point. It was an amazing thing, as you may
suppose, for a beautiful young woman, richly dressed,
to be seen walking alone on the public road. He got
down from his chariot, and asked her to ride with him.
She refused. He put his hand on her shoulder. She
turned round, and in trying to wrest herself away, she
caught her hand in his robe and made a great rent in
it. He was of course in a furious rage, and bade his
lictors arrest her. The men handcuffed her, put her
into a car which was following the Eparch's chariot and
so brought her to Lystra.

"I don't know exactly the particulars of what followed.
Thekla was brought before the Eparch and the other
magistrates of the town. He
was, of course, furious, and then she had certainly
insulted a priest and torn the sacred robe. Still she
had had provocation, and the tearing was plainly an
accident. There must have been something more. She may
have used strong words about the local gods. Even the
Greeks, as you know, look down upon this particular
kind of worship. It seems anyhow that there was some
further offence beyond the blow and the tearing of the
robe, for the sentence was a very heavy one, the
heaviest that could be inflicted. Thekla was found
guilty of blasphemy, and was sentenced to suffer death
by being exposed to wild beasts. There was to be a show
in two or three days' time.

"What was to be done with her in the meantime? The
magistrates had some conscience; or perhaps her youth
and beauty moved them. She was not to be thrown into
the common gaol, but to be committed to the charge of
Queen Tryphaena, the widow, you must know, of some
Thracian king.

"Well, the Queen was much taken with the maiden. It
seemed to her a monstrous thing that an innocent woman,
who after all had done nothing but what became a woman,
should be dealt with in such a fashion. She did all
that she could with the magistrates to induce them to
commute the sentence for something
less shocking; but it was to no purpose. The day came
on and the theatre was pretty well filled—you know that
such exhibitions are not to the taste of the better
class of Greeks, but there are always numbers of brutal
or foolish persons who would crowd to see anything
horrible or exciting. The Queen herself went, not, of
course, because she had any of this wretched curiosity,
but simply because she could not bear to leave the girl
to her fate, and she hoped against hope that even at
the last she might be able to do something for her.
When her turn came Thekla was led into the arena, and
bound to a stake that was set up in the middle of it.
One of the gates of the dens in which the wild beasts
are kept was opened and a lion came bounding out. Then
the spectators seemed to realize for the first time
what was going on. They saw this beautiful girl
fastened to the stake and doomed to the most horrible
of deaths. A Roman crowd is used to such sights, but in
a Greek city they are rare, and, indeed, would never
have been seen at all but for the Roman rule. Anyhow,
there was a great cry of horror, so loud that it seemed
to terrify the beast; at all events it stopped short,
and stood a few yards from the door of the cage lashing
its tail to and fro. Then there was a shrill cry which
was heard above all the din.
It came from the Queen. The horror of the scene had
been too much for her. The next moment she fainted.
Well, she could not have done anything more effectual
to stop the affair. The town clerk whispered to the
chief magistrate, 'This is a bad business, my lord.
Queen Tryphaena is a kinswoman of Augustus, and if
anything should happen to her, we should be held
accountable. It is evident, too, that the people don't
like it.' The end of it was that the magistrate gave
orders that everything possible should be done to save
Thekla. Happily this turned out to be a fairly easy
business. The lion was somewhat cowed by the noise;
anyhow his keeper had very little difficulty in getting
him back to his den. The girl was unbound and put in
the charge of the Queen again, and remained with her
for some weeks. During this time the young man to whom
she had been promised in marriage was killed out
hunting. This made the situation easier. Her parents
were not bitter against her; but as long as the young
man lived, they could hardly help acting, for he
belonged to a very influential family. She did not go
back to Iconium; that under the circumstances would
have been hardly prudent; but a Christian home was
found for her somewhere. There she busies herself with
woman's work among the poor of the faith, and is
greatly beloved."